Anberlin - New Surrender
 

Anberlin's latest effort has been a staple diet on my Blackberry for the last few weeks for a good old listen on my way to and from work. The start of "New Surrender" is perfect walking music and really helps to get you in the mood for work, regardless of the weather.

The thing I found with this album is it starts off heavy, fast paced and passionate and ends up slow, poignant and sombre. Now I'm not sure if this was all a song writing plan to clearly depict the obvious lost relationship that lead singer and chief songwriter Stephen Christian has recently experienced. By that I mean imagine the songs of this album are a relationship from beginning - fast paced, hard hitting and passionate - to end. It honestly makes sense both musically and lyrically.

The first track "The Resistance" is an excellent opening track that hits in hard, fast and upbeat. The chorus guitar stabs progressively increase each time from two to three to four to five which offers a great subtle undertow of song writing brilliance that builds the track up well to the final crescendo of gang vocals "Speak for yourself" that ends the track. Phew! What a ride.

"Breaking" quickly takes the place of "The Resistance" and you are already digging on this track, although not as instantly addictive as the first "Breaking" appears to have a lot more depth and heartfelt lyrical content. That, coupled with great vocal melody, and interesting production effects - in particular the granular synthesis that is in varied places over the track - make for a really fun listen.

"Blame Me! Blame Me!" is again a nice little up tempo number. However, to me this track doesn't contain as much panache as the previous efforts and although fun, catchy and singable it seems to lack a slight amount of depth that the other songs on this album quite obviously possess.

"Retrace" is my personal favourite stand out track on this album due to it's original and beautiful melodies. It is at this point that I realize a lot of Anberlin's vocal melodies for this album have been borrowed from the 80s. This isn't necessarily a bad thing although, in a wise move, they have only borrowed the vocal melody and not the 80s overall sound. The introduction of strings in this track really help show the grandeur of the song and without doubt "Retrace" is a track that you could listen to over and over.

"Feel Good Drag" has a weird place on the album but is also weird lyrically compared to the other tracks which is probably due to the fact that I imagine all the tracks on this album is about one girl. "Feel Good Drag" appears to be about a girl on the side, that is an affair. It's unclear whether he is in or out of an existing relationship during the song but the girl in question most definitely still is. This makes the adultery tone of the track quite dark and three dimensional. "Feel Good Drag" has all the passion, angst and drive of the first track all over again which is a really great place to put a song like this however, the musical tone of the track follows the lyrical content which makes for the darkest song on this album. This track also showcases the best musicianship on the album with a rip roaring solo. More tracks like this from Anberlin would be much welcomed by me.

"Disappear" is the most 80s influenced song on the album and there is a song that it really reminds me of. It might be a Billy Idol track? I'm not sure, I can't put my finger on it. This is a fun song but like "Blame Me! Blame Me!" it doesn't seem to have the foundation and structure of the better tracks on this album.

It is at this point that the album makes me yawn slightly. I still enjoy listening to the rest of the album but all the following tracks just have that weird slowness and awkwardness to them and none seem to really ever shine. Sure there are still great melodies and moments where the tempo gets uplifted again but I could quite comfortably turn off my CD player at this point and not feel like I've missed anything from this album. That is apart from "Haight Street" for it's "more catchy than the common cold" chorus or the weirdly titled last track "Track 13" which is a poignant song about a difficult relationship and how love can be mean and hard at times. Something that most have at some point experienced and can certainly relate to. If this song doesn't make you cry then I don't know what will. "I guess that's why they call this love, sadly unpredictable".

Overall a really great album by a band I have never really listened to as a full length album before (just a few tracks at a time). I will definitely be looking forward to what will be coming from these guys next.

As an aside, Anberlin remind me of my friend that passed away a couple of years ago around this time of year -because he loved Anberlin. This album has come at a good time for me because I can think of him every time I listen to "New Surrender" because I know he would have loved it. "New Surrender" will probably end up becoming a good, positive memory of my friend that I can put on and think of all the great things that kid did in the short life he had.

RIP Mike.